First screenshots of NWN 2 hitting the shelf

[Serissa]

No animal?  That's the pits!!  Please don't take away our animals.

[Ar7]

The second screenshot says that the mod and scripting system should remain the same, that's great news!

[Talan Va'lash]

steverimmer - 10/12/2005  12:39 AM

No according to what I've read when the item/familiar is equipped it offers new abilties skills or stats instead.  Just no actual animal.

Thats silly.  I'm sure its based on speculation, people saying something with partial information, and the "through the grape vine" effect.

Its probably based on something that was said like "Familiars will acctually give mages the benefits they should get as in PnP."  like certain familiars that give bonus hp, or give alertness etc.

-TV

[Filatus]

Written by Anthony Davis, Obsidian programmer

The current plan is that familiars will not fight. They can be put in your backpack.

I think the jury is still out on damaging familiars, but I would bet on 'No'.

Animal Companions are a completely different deal. They will be similar to how they were in NWN1.

Again, none of this is completely set in stone yet.

So there will be an animal. It will be the same as in BG 2, where you can choose to keep him in your backpack.

EDIT: Concerning the release date, NWN 2 has been booked by Atari for the second financial quarter of 2006. Or something like that. But I wouldn't be surprised if the game would come out in december 2006

[Doc-Holiday]

Just what we need... Oddpetal the spastic Fairydragon pokeing it's head out of my backpack every few minutes to annoy me... and everyone in hearing range. I wonder if they will add an animation so you can see the thing wiggiling in your pack or have it's head pop out once in a while... would be entertaining at the least.

[lunchboxkilla]

IRON GOLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If those are the screenshots, something tells me I am going to need to purchase a high end graphics card

Did check out the NWN forum through bioware, and it seems the ongoing posts that I have read, say that 2DA is here to stay, that there is GUI and XML. That most things in the existing NWN will be migrateable to NWN 2. I may have read this wrong, but I think that is what the programmer at Obsidian is saying.

Not really sure I like the whole virtual aspect of NWN 2, it looks so like Civ IV.

[Filatus]

Yup, to enjoy the full potential of NWN 2 you will need a 512 MB videocard. But still, it'll probably still be a year before it comes out. Plenty of time.

[Ar7]

Filatus - 10/13/2005  8:19 PM


Yup, to enjoy the full potential of NWN 2 you will need a 512 MB videocard. But still, it'll probably still be a year before it comes out. Plenty of time.

You can play Battlefield 2 or Half Life 2 on full graphics with a 512MB card, you won't need that for NWN2.....I think

[Filatus]

Hmm, yes, you're probably right. Couldn't find where I read it anymore, which makes me doubtful whether I actually read it in the first place. As far as I could find the only problem might be that the videocard will have to be able to support all direct x 9.0 functions. Of course I have no idea what that means.

[lonnarin]

Probably just the req for the absolute highest gfx setting.  Likely if you nix some of the shadow casting lights and such and lower the resolution it'll run pretty smoothly on a 128mb card.  By no means will the min req for vram be half a gigabyte; that'd bankrupt them as only 4% of the gaming population would be able to play it.

I'm hoping they make their content even more easy to modify this time around.  Like wizards in the toolset that more easily generate new feats, spells, weapon types without having to edit a hackfile.  More useful administrative panels and logs would be very useful for PW maintainence.  Also... please please PLEASE let there be the fly spell!  It's so useful just to soar over obstacles from time to time... been playing XMen Legends 2 and Magneto is my favorite character thanks to this ability.

Overall, I'm excited about their GFX and GUI this time around.  Kind of steering away from the Warcraft top-down perspective and more mirroring a 3D style like Gothic II or Fable.  Ideally though, I wish there was more action and eye-hand control involved for PWs.  The point-click-kill Everquest standard, though "fair" is somewhat boring compared to a more active interface akin to Fable's heavy action.

Of all the games I *really* wish would become a PW, it'd have to be Vampire: Bloodlines.  It's GUI plays like Doom when you're shooting firearms, Fable when you're up close in melee, Knights of the Old Republic when you interview NPCs, and the Thamaturgy and Obfuscate modes where pretty well done.  The storyline is probably the darkest I've seen in a PC game so far, more vile than Grand Theft Auto.

[Flamey]

I just hope they release a Mac compatible version of it, though I suspect my current computer (a 1.5Ghz Apple Powerbook with 64Mb ATI Radeon 9700 graphics) won't be fast enough (it works perfectly with the original NWN, though, even on quite high graphics settings)